US mulls 'cloud-first' policy

The US federal government has been one of the most vocal entities about the power of cloud computing, and now the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) said it will require a 'cloud-first' approach to IT as part of the 2012 budget process, states CRN.

"We were tasked with developing a new strategy to fundamentally change how the federal government purchases and uses IT," Jeffrey Zients, chief performance officer and deputy director for management at the OMB, wrote in a blog post on federal IT reform.

Part of that reform will include a cloud-first policy that will open the door for adoption of light technologies and shared solutions and lead to the consolidation of federal data centres, Zients said.

Cloud computing is 'resonating more strongly for more people' and heralds an evolution of business that is no less influential than the era of e-business, according to analysts, reveals Channel News.

Cloud computing allows businesses to reduce the cost of computing resources and move away from the use of technology to consuming technology services.

Rakesh Kumar, research vice-president at Gartner, says: "The potential benefits of cloud are a shift from 'capacity' on demand to 'capability' on demand, a reduced cost of computing resources and a shift from technology use to 'value' consumption."

The European Union (EU) is funding a three-year research project that intends to develop a variety of technical components and policies designed to make cloud computing more secure, notes PC World.

Cloud computing is a buzz phrase often invoked by companies offering computing services in their own data centres, the report says. Companies such as Google, Microsoft and IBM have been aggressively pushing cloud technology to their customers, saying the concept offers flexible, low-cost computing that lets enterprises roll new services out faster to their customers.

But there are a variety of privacy and security issues around cloud computing that have not been fully investigated, the report states, which ranges from regulatory and legal issues to technical questions over how data stored remotely can be secured.